The present invention refers to an album leaf with insertion pockets for mounting of photographic paper prints and similar planar rectangular articles in albums, said leaf comprising at least two superimposed layers of suitable material, especially plastic, the lower or intermediate layer being opaque while the other layer or layers being transparent, the layers being joined together along the peripheral edges of the leaf and along frame lines defining the article pockets, the album leaf having a horizontally oriented rectangular format with a margin along one of the short sides of the leaf for binding purposes, the leaf with reference to the binding margin being symmetric relative to the longitudinal centre axis of the leaf, so that the leaf may be turned over about said axis and the leaf having a length of the short side being substantially at least equal to the sum of the length of one short and one long side of an article, while having a length on the long side being substantially equal to twice the length of the article on the long side.
Album leaves of this kind recently have come into more frequent use. The work with mounting of the paper prints is reduced, namely, in said kind of album leaves to only a pure insertion of the prints in the various pockets, which of course is found to be much more attractive than the previous glueing method which was both time-consuming and messy. Many different detail embodiments of such album leaves also have been suggested but they have all suffered from a substantial drawback, namely in that with a rectangular format of the prints and a corresponding shape of the pockets it has only been possible to mount the prints in one single position. Most often one has then chosen the position in which the print has its long side lying horizontally. This format undeniably seems to be the one which most frequently is used when taking pictures on rectangular negatives, but when pictures are taken in upright format they thus must be mounted lying in one or the other direction. When looking upon said pictures it will obviously be cumbersome to turn the album repeatedly in one or the other direction for looking upon the pictures. Many persons also find it aestethically disturbing that all pictures are mounted closely adjacent each other and parallel and all oriented in the same direction. It gives namely a much more living and attractive impression when pictures of the most conventional horizontally oriented format are mixed with correctly turned, i.e. standing upright format pictures on the album pages.
The main object of the present invention therefore is to provide an album leaf of the afore-mentioned kind in which the above-stated drawbacks are eliminated. In accordance with the invention this is achieved substantially in that one article pocket frame line extends parallel to the long sides of the leaf and is spaced from one of said long sides a distance substantially corresponding to the length of a short side of an article, while a further frame line running parallel to the other of the long leaf sides and being spaced the same distance therefrom, extends from a frame line defining the binding margin on the short leaf side, respectively, along only a short distance substantially corresponding to the difference between the lengths of the short and long side of an article, so that in the two pockets thus formed, there is allowed a free choice of mounting articles in either an upright or a horizontally oriented position. In the case where the leaf consists of three layers, the frame lines on either side of the intermediate layer are located strictly opposite each other and the outer layers are cut or scored parallel to the binding margin at a distance therefrom corresponding to the length of the long side of an article.
Owing to the above-stated character of the second frame line so as to only consist of the two short portions, one at each end of the leaf, there is now provided a possibility to freely select a standing or horizontally oriented position of the pictures in the pockets on one side of the longitudinal centre axis of the leaf. After turning the whole leaf over about said axis the upright or standing pictures can be located uppermost with horizontally oriented pictures below but also other mounting variations are possible as will be evident from the following.